Coca-Cola admits presence of plastic in Dasani

What you need to know:

  • Concentration of microplastics in Dasani water sourced in Kenya topped 335 plastic pieces for every litre.
  • Samples of Dasani water bought from Amazon had a minimum and maximum concentration of 85 and 303 plastic pieces per litre, respectively.
  • In an interview with the BBC, Coca-Cola said it had some of the most stringent quality standards in the industry and used a “multi-step filtration process.”

Soft drinks giant Coca-Cola has admitted to the presence of micro-plastics in Dasani water following a study released on Thursday that shows the brand is among 93 per cent of world’s famous bottled water products contaminated by tiny pieces of plastic.

The concentration of microplastics in Dasani water sourced in Kenya topped 335 plastic pieces for every litre.

Samples of Dasani water bought from Amazon had a minimum and maximum concentration of 85 and 303 plastic pieces per litre, respectively.

The survey by scientists based at the State University of New York, and commissioned by a non-profit media organisation Orb, analysed bottled water sourced from Kenya, Indonesia, India, the US, Lebanon, Thailand, China, Mexico, Brazil and e-commerce platform Amazon.

To date, there is no evidence that supports that ingesting small pieces of plastic is harmful.

However, it is a growing area of study as scientists get concerned by the increasing plastic pollution and its effect on human beings and the ecosystem.

In an interview with the BBC, Coca-Cola said it had some of the most stringent quality standards in the industry and used a “multi-step filtration process.”

The firm, however, acknowledged that microplastics “appear to be ubiquitous and therefore may be found at minute levels even in highly treated products”.

The study tested 259 bottles sold by 11 brands, purchased in 19 locations in nine different countries. Only 17 bottles were free of plastics.

Samples from Nestle Pure Life brand sourced from the US had the highest concentration at 10,390 plastic pieces a litre. The study revealed that contamination was at least partially coming from the packaging or the bottling process.

The latest survey follows a tap water study released in September last year showing the level of plastic pieces concentration. 

“We found roughly twice as many plastic particles within bottled water as compared to tap water on average,” the study said.

UK medical journal Lancet in article published in October 2017 on Microplastics and Human Health says that while no one has come out to quantify the effect of microplastics on human beings urgent measures are needed to reduce it use and to understand the effects of these particles on both ecosystems and the human body.